


Love Tap

by Lucy_Claire



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: M/M, Oliver gets bumped on the head, Temporary Amnesia, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-06-08 19:59:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6871312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucy_Claire/pseuds/Lucy_Claire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oliver loses eight years-worth of memories when Barry accidentally hits his head, prompting a confused Oliver to confuse him and Barry for boyfriends</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Tap

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt 'Accidentally punched you while gesturing' requested by Tumblr user raspbarryallen
> 
> This was going to be a small fic but my brain had other plans

 

Another successful team-up with the Flash and Team Arrow was underway, but through most of it was just Barry and Oliver after the abandoned building they were inspecting split in half and separating them from the rest of Team Arrow. Luckily, Cisco’s voice in Barry’s ear led them out in time to contain their problem, with Barry trapping them in a spiral of fast light by spinning around them and Oliver shooting them with tranquilizers.

“Did you see that?” Barry asked Oliver over com as he zipped over to Oliver. “I haven’t used that technique in ages, mostly because every other time I tried it I ended up slipping out of the circle and going the wrong way. But I did it.”

Smiling at him wryly, Oliver got on his bike. “Good job, Barry.”

“Thanks! It’s not as easy as it seems, running in circles, but —” Barry paused. “You’re making fun of me.”

Oliver’s humorless smile stayed put.

Barry set his hands on his hips. “What did I do now?”

“You went ahead without me, you didn’t follow my orders.”

Aghast, and a bit offended, Barry scoffed, “Orders? I don’t follow your orders.”

“Well, you should.”

“I’m not a part of your team, I’m here to give you a hand. And why should I listen to you anyway? You never listen to me.”

“Because I’ve been at this far longer than you and I’ve actually been trained to discipline myself and my limits.”

“I know my limits!”

“You just said that you’re surprised that your little spin trap worked because you always slip out of it,” Oliver argued. “You could have risked them getting away if you slipped up.”

“I wouldn’t have risked them getting too far. Fastest man alive, remember?”

“Yeah, clearly your feet are faster than your brain.”

Entirely offended, Barry turned and started buzzing, leaving the words “Too proud to say thanks, aren’t we?” as he zipped ahead, not bothering to run alongside Oliver’s bike.

 

* * *

 

Back at the Quiver, Team Arrow was hosting a yay-we-won party. Caitlin, Laurel and Felicity were chatting by the monitors while Thea and Cisco listened to Barry’s impassioned relay of what he and Oliver did after they got separated from the others, Barry quickly and wildly gesturing as he described everything excitedly.

“And I was right in front of them like ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ and when I they pulled out their guns I was all ‘Behind you’ and Oliver shot them both in the back like —” at the exact moment Barry punched his fist up to accompany his descriptive pfew, the sound of arrows through the air, his quick knuckles slammed into the head of whoever was behind him.

Barry watched Cisco cringe and Thea put her hands over her mouth and heard someone hit the floor behind him and knew the collision was a bit harder than slamming someone’s jaw shut. He quickly turned and knelt to the side of Oliver, who was knocked out cold with a purple bruise already forming in the sheared side of his blond head.

“Oliver? Oliver!” Barry shook him, panicking.

Caitlin came over as fast as she could, descending the stairs one careful foot at a time so her heels wouldn’t be the end of her. “What happened?”

“I — I — I hit him. Or punched him. Or something. But I can’t remember how fast I was moving and how much force I put it into it.”

Caitlin shooed his hands off Oliver’s head and started feeling around the bruising spot. “Nothing’s broken, and I can’t tell if there’s a hairline fracture of any sort, but the bruising indicates that you hit him with a force of — well, that’s a bad comparison, but, I think it’s the same impact as him running headfirst into a telephone pole or the top of a doorway.”

“Is that good?” Thea asked, concerned.

Caitlin made one of her exaggerated faces, twisting down the corners of her mouth to convey a silent _Yikes_. “It’s better than what it could have been. If Barry was moving at one of his typically higher speeds he could have cracked Oliver’s head, peeling off the skin, breaking off the side of it and spraying his brains on the wall.”

Cisco let out a high-pitched shout at the visual and pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes. “Thank you, Doctor Snow, for the image I will now think off every time Barry’s hand is near my head.”

“Should we try to wake him up?” Laurel asked, leaning close enough over Barry for him to feel the ends of her hair tickling the top of his head. “What if he has a concussion?”

“He most certainly will have a concussion, so he should stay awake for a few hours so I can monitor his behavior,” Caitlin agreed.

Thea and Caitlin started shaking him, calling his name. He stayed put, scaring Barry even more.

Barry put a hand on his pulse point and begged, “Ollie, come on. Wake up.”

His eyelids twitched.

Barry stroked his head, his hand shaking. “Oliver.”

Slowly, he opened his eyes and started blinking up at the light. “My head…”

His eyes zeroed in on Thea and Laurel, acting and sounding very delirious. “Thea, Laurie, who are all these people? Are we at a party?”

Caitlin’s _Yikes_ face reflected Barry’s own growing distress and Thea sucking in her lips from shock.

They helped him sit up and he blinked a few more times until his sight focused, he then looked to Barry, who still had a hand cradling his head and another on his chest, and grinned at him brightly, slurring, “Who are you?”

“Barry,” he choked out.

Oliver put his hand on the hand Barry hand on his chest, thumbing his hand. “I can’t seem to remember you, Barry. We friends?”

“I’d say we’re more partners?”

Barry met eyes with every other person in the room and they all silently agreed that this was a disaster.

* * *

 

Caitlin came out of the Quiver’s infirmary, taking off her stethoscope. “It seems that he’s suffering from post-traumatic amnesia.”

“What does that mean?” asked Thea, who had been pacing in a circle with Barry.

“Um, basically, Oliver’s forgotten the last eight or so years of his life.”

“Oh.” Most of them said.

“How long will it take for him to go back to normal?” Barry asked, feeling himself vibrate. “His memories will come back, right?”

“He will!” Caitlin assured him, hands raised to shush his nerves. “It might just take a while.”

“What do we do until he does get his memories back?” Laurel asked her. “If he thinks he’s still in college then we might have a problem on our hands.”

“Why?” Thea asked.

“First of all, how do we explain this?” Laurel gestured up and down to Thea. “You were like twelve the the last he remembers.”

“And how do we explain all of this?” Diggle finally spoke, waving to the space around them.

“Why not just fill him in?” Barry suggested.

“Because he’s think we’re crazy,” said Cisco.

“I can just run and around show him what I do.”

“And give him a heart attack?” Cisco added. “Barry, he learned about all of this over years, starting with the island he was on, if you just drop all of this on him he might go nuts.”

“Then what do we do if he remembers?” Barry suggested. “Remember when you started remembering the other time line? What was that like?”

Cisco glared at Barry. Barry bumped his own head. “Sorry.”

Cisco waved him off. “It’s alright, I have to get used to talking about it. But I started remembered while I had already seen the impossible, and I did think I was going crazy.”

“So, what do we tell him?” Thea asked Caitlin.

“Tell him about the boat sinking, about his father, about being on the island, maybe even the League of Assassins but keep the supernatural to a minimum until he remembers?” Caitlin suggested. “Until one of us figures out a way to trigger his memories.”

A trigger, Barry needed to find a good key to unlock all his memories of the last eight years.

Thea and Laurel went in first to talk to Oliver, then Diggle went in and stayed a good while, probably taking it upon himself to explain Lian Yu, the sinking of the _Queen’s Gambit_ and what’s happened with Malcolm Merlyn.

Diggle came out and waved Barry over. “He wants to talk to you.”

Barry had to stop himself from zooming inside and to Oliver’s side and walked in, letting Diggle shut the door.

Oliver was sitting on a large bed by the wall, holding an icepack to his head. The second he saw Barry he grinned, a rare sight on his typically gloomy, brooding face. “Hey, you’re Barry.”

Barry took the chair by his bed, crossing his fidgety legs to keep them steady. “I’m Barry, yeah.”

“You’re a CSI,” Oliver remembered vaguely. “You used rat poison to save me.”

“Did Diggle tell you that?

“No, that’s just kind of stuck in my head, that I got poisoned and you turned up and saved me with rat poison. How did you think of that?”

“Quick thinking with chemistry,” Barry said. “How’s your head?”

“Sore. Diggle says I got knocked by a concrete brick and I’m forgetting a few things.”

“More than a few,” Barry said.

“Care to jog my memory?”

“Erm…” Barry trailed off, knowing the first thing out his mouth would be “I’m basically Hermes and you’re basically Apollo.”

“Guess I’ll have to ask. How did we become friends?”

“We’re not friends, we’re partners.”

“Yeah, you said that earlier. How did we become partners though?” Oliver asked, inching his hand closer to Barry’s.

Barry then realized he couldn’t explain that part without explaining the Zippy Red Hermes and Angsty Green Apollo aspect of their side jobs but he found that he didn’t need to Oliver made his own assumption and touched his hand.

An electric zap passed between them and they both gasped. Barry pulled back his hand and rubbed the back of his neck, awkwardly stammering, “Static! Carpets! Static from carpets.”

Oliver wiggled his fingers, staring at them. “Central City. You’re from Central, I’ve visited you there a few times.”

“You have,” Barry said, excited that he jogged something. “You never stayed long, just enough to help me out or have coffee for a few hours.”

“Why would I go all the way to Central though, there’s nothing there,” Oliver considered, until his eyes landed on him as he said, “Partners. I went all the way there for you.”

“You did.”

“Just for you?”

“Among other things.”

Oliver reached for hand again, his hands rough with callouses, the slight friction between his skin and Oliver’s jumpstarting a rush in Barry’s blood. His pale face must be a bright pink by now. He had to leave before he made a fool of himself.

Barry stood up slow to compensate for the urge to rush out in a blur and Oliver caught his arm, stopping at first to notice his own grip and the size of his arm compared to what it was years ago. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”

“Oliver…”

“I don’t care if I don’t remember everything, you don’t have to take it easy on me if you think I can’t cope. Just tell me everything.”

“I really don’t think it’s a good idea. You won’t like what you hear.”

Oliver stood, his icy blue eyes searching Barry’s face. “Why not?”

“You — the current you is so much more different than you from eight years ago, you’re open a lot more things and didn’t flinch at so many others like…like…” murder, assassins, your parents being horrible people, people with superpowers.

Oliver stepped closer, hand still on Barry’s arm, and cupped his face. “I may be a bit of a dick but trust me, I’m self-aware enough to know what you’re talking about.”

Barry looked left then he looked right, checking that Oliver was’t talking to anyone else as he unsurely asked, “You do?”

Oliver then did the unthinkable, he leaned in and kissed Barry.

Barry’s brain went offline for a good few seconds, when it came back on he was loose in Oliver’s grip, still being kissed. In a rush of alarm and confusion, Barry stepped back from Oliver, his face burning, his brain going a mile a minute, hammering the same three words along to his pounding heartbeat “Oh My God! Oh My God! Oh My God _what?_ ”

“What is it?” Oliver asked him, innocence was a bizarre look on his usually grumpy face.

“What did you that for?”

“Kiss you? I thought you — I thought we — ” Oliver stopped, eyes wide, recognition seeping back into them, darkening them. “We’re not dating, are we? We work together sometimes. Our cities, the crime in it, that’s what we work on.”

“Yep,I am a CSI.”

Oliver shook his head, a confused wrinkle in his brow. “That’s not it.”

“It is.”

“You’re lying to me.” Oliver stepped closer, reaching out Barry’s face again. “If we’re not together then what are we? You’re too young to be my partner in work and you’re a city away to be a partner in investigation. If we’re not partners the way I feel we are then how come seeing you feels so familiar, so safe.” He held Barry’s face again. “Why do I like being around you so much.”

“You don’t. You can’t stand me.”

“I certainly don’t remember that.”

Oliver leaned in again and it took a lot of self-control from Barry to turn his head. “I can’t. You don’t remember, it’d be taking advantage.”

“It wouldn’t.”

Barry shot out of Oliver’s grasp, stunning him. “No, you don’t understand, you can’t stand me.”

Oliver reached out for him again, a look on his face Barry would probably never see again, one of unguarded and open emotion, of confusion and hope and Barry had to choice but turn around and shoot out of the room.

* * *

 

A week later, Barry was working on a case in Jitters, taking up a whole table for his files and pictures with several plates of food and three cups of coffee ready to be devoured in a rush. Halfway through his cheese danish, someone dropped down in the seat in front of him.

“Oliver,” Barry said with a mouth full of cheesy pastry. He swallowed, nervously checking the side of Oliver’s head for a large purple bruise. “How’s your memory?”

Oliver, sullen and stoic as he was before the incident, simply said, “It’s mostly all back now, I just can’t remember one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“You said I didn’t like you, everything I remember is pretty contrary,” Oliver said pretty matter-of-factly. “I like you fine, Barry. I like you a lot, even. More than I should.”

“You don’t sound like you do.”

Oliver’s lips quirked up in a tired smile. “What can I say? Five years on an island full of assassins puts a damper on your emotions.”

Barry set down his mug and leaned across the table. “So, you do have feelings for me? Positive ones?”

“Of course I do, you’re one of my best friends, I have a suit ready for you in the Quiver, I told you you could depend on me for anything and I try to talk to you whenever I can, what would I do if I didn’t like you?”

“I don’t know, you just get pretty snappy with me sometimes, you make me feel like I annoy you.”

Oliver reached for Barry’s hand, the first time he touched him with his memories back. “You do, a little, but in a good way.”

Barry turned up his palm and held Oliver’s hand. “At least something came out of me punching your head.”

“Think of it as payback for shooting those arrows in your back.”

“Oh, I will.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Follow on my [**Tumblr**](http://lucyclairedelune.tumblr.com)!
> 
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> 
> Don't forget to comment! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧


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